If you're the kind of online shopper who regularly uses customer reviews to judge if something is worth buying, then you'll be pleased to know that the US Federal Trade Commission has got your back thanks to a new set of rules that ban the use of fake reviews to make a product appear better than it is.
FTC chair Lina Khan posted news of the rules coming into action on X, including the relevant email address for reporting any violations. Given how many online retailers use customer reviews to rate and rank products, these new rules are likely to have far-reaching effects, though it will take a good while to have any noticeable impact.
That's because the legislation requires customers to report any violations they've encountered for the FTC to take action, which in turn requires said customers to be aware of the ruling and how to report the issue. But as more people become aware of all of this, the rules will begin to reach their full potency.
And potent they are, as all together, they prohibit a comprehensive list of problems faced by online shoppers:
- Fake or false customer reviews and testimonials, including those from celebrities
- The buying of positive and negative reviews
- Insider reviews
- Company-controlled review sites
- Review suppression
- The misuse of fake social media indicators
Traditionally, false reviews and testimonials have been done by people being paid to do so, or by representatives of the companies involved, creating fake accounts and pretending to be users. But the FTC makes it clear that the first of these includes the use of AI-generated fake reviews, an iceberg of which we're currently only seeing the very tip.
Of course, not all reviews one sees online are fake and companies that provide a service often thrive on the back of a host of genuine customer comments.
However, when such comments are negative, there have been cases where companies or individuals have threatened legal action or physical intimidation to get a review taken down.
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The FTC rules ban that too and includes situations where a business purports to show all of its reviews when the reality is that a large majority have actually been suppressed from appearing because they were negative or critical of the company.
That ruling does seem to be the hardest one to enforce, though, because determining whether the reviews shown are all of them or just a small sample isn't easy to do.
But even so, it's a step in the right direction and good news for online shoppers. I doubt we'll ever see the end of fake reviews but at least now there's a proper mechanism for reporting them to the relevant authorities.
Just remember to keep a cynical mind when seeing any customer review of a product, be it positive or negative, and remember the old adage:
"If it looks too good to be true, then it is!"
